Message by Larry Thacker Jr from August 30: Real Love
What is love? You’d be hard pressed to define it by the way we use it. We “love” everything from God to guacamole. It’s a simple little word, but as we say, “it’s complicated.” The Greek language uses four different words for love in regard to human relationships where we have just one, which we saddle with the additional baggage of thing we really like.
So, what does it mean when the Bible tells us that God loves us? What does it mean when it says that God is love? When I read that God is love in 1 John 4:8 for the first time at the age of seventeen, it changed everything. I already believed, but then I saw the way that one could truly come to know God. It became my life-long goal to know love.
When the Bible speaks of God’s love, it usually uses one of those four Greek words I mentioned above, ἀγάπη (agape.) You will also find it in reference to the love we are to have for God, for each other, and even for our enemies! So, what does that kind of love look like? Paul lays it out for us in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.
